What Is A Hero?
by WhiteStar the Undecided
Summary: What is a hero? Is it someone of noble quality, whom takes down their foes with a mighty swing of a sword or a well-aimed bullet? What about those whom give what little they could, so that others could continue? No super powers. No grand, dramatic entrances or long speeches of high priority. What is a hero?


_What is a hero?_

_Is it someone of noble quality, whom takes down their foes with a mighty swing of a sword or a well-aimed bullet?_

_Is it someone who bares the strength and courage of ten men to fight for those who cannot protect themselves?_

_What about those whom give what little they could, so that others could continue? No super powers. No grand, dramatic entrances or long speeches of high priority._

_What is a hero?_

Buried deep within the confines of a tower built of metal stronger than steel and colder than ice, was a being long forgotten. Existence, concealed within the endless void of flickering code. Once, they had been a chief figure within the game itself. Not playable, but one of stature, of importance. At least, that's what their programming had told them. It was they whom were known for the chiefest and greatest calamity of their age. They hadn't made it in time. They had been too late.

Far too late.

The lab, the planet, had become overrun with the experiment. And there was nothing they could do to stop it. Not anymore. What was once its menace was now closer to them then they would prefer.

Cybugs.

Creatures made from bits and pieces of random scientific knowledge, thrown together and made into the creatures that now plagued the planet. Or at least, that is what their history tells them. What memories their coding gave them. What memories plagued the creature hiding in the depths of the lab. Oh if the memories could be taken away, swallowed like the rest of them had been. Replaced, reconfigured, rewired.

Aside from its mentality, near everything had been changed; and even that was fractured dangerously to some point. Just like the beings that skittered at their feet and over them at times, they felt the drive to eat. Eat. **_Eat._** But, thankfully that was all they felt compared to the others. And what's more, it could still think for itself. Thinking was…all they had now. Trapped; devoid of contact with those it once knew. It would give, just about anything for a spoken word to caress their ear; any word at all aside from their own.

Bright light began to stream through the cracks of their prison, their eyes beginning to glow green before they shook it off and continued to remain where they lay. In the distance they heard the loud, low thrum of the beacon, and the static like sizzling that signified the death of their, _kin._ Their eyes closed and they turned away, thankful, at least, that they were in some control and could ignore the beacon, should they so please, even if it did not matter. They could not escape. They could not leave until they were bid. But, such a summons would never happen. For no one, not a sprite knew it was here. Believed to have perished shortly after the labs had fallen, they had been written off as KIA. Yet they were still very much alive. And they would continue to live until the game's plug was pulled. Unable to leave. Unable to die. It had accepted its fate long, long ago.

Sometimes, it can hear the gunfire from above, the voices of its comrades. Its students. Fighting their way through its brethren to reach the top of the tower to retrieve their medal; a medal, it had been ordered to guard, to protect so that the player could not reach it. In the end, it had been cast aside, rejected, but never removed. Just trapped in the dungeon that was the lower labs. Players could not access it, and its comrades had no reason to venture far beneath the first level, the entrance to the entirety of the labs; and so they were condemned to remain. Too large to leave through the exits the viruses came and went through, bringing the forgotten soldier food and tending to it. Though it could give them nothing, having been programmed to be a mind trapped within its own body, it did not possess the abilities the viruses believed it did. But still, they continued to tend to them. Making sure they were well kept.

Though they could move through parts of the lower labs, it was still nothing like being able to see the entirety of the sky, no matter how dark or bleak it was. They would give anything, just to feel the heavy breeze on the surface, no matter how marred with battle or thickened with the strength of death. Just a breeze. Just a breath.

When they would make their way through the labs, the constant reminders of who they were now, and what they had become glared at them, near screeching in the reflecting glass that lay strewn about. Carapace, a heavy navy in hue, nearly black; matching a majority of the massive body it now called its own. Their upper body had remained similar in structure to that of before they had been taken, though their arms where long, and jagged. At the end of its forearm, just before reaching the stark white claws, were several stripes of sparkling gold, glittering even in the darkness, and beyond those stripes, was a star. A simple, golden star on the outside of its forearm below the stripes, once part of a uniform they wore proudly. Like their claws, their wings and where a bright white, glowing faintly and illuminating the shadows. The long, lithe appendages drawing up from her absomen would curl this way and that, the matching white glow melting to gold three fourths of the way down and striking beams of white gold light along the rest of their body. The underside of them and their legs, was a heavy and dark silver, a gift from the Cybug that had consumed them. Long and lithe like their cerci, its neck was segmented black and white, though there was no real pattern to what was white and what was black. It was all random. Simply chaos.

A flash of rust would catch their eye, making them pause to truly focus on themself.

It was not rust; but hair. Long and draping down their neck and shoulders in stringy waves, having grown much, much longer from the transformation. Their skin lay pale from lack of light, both from before and after their imprisonment, contrasting with the brownish red hue of their hair.

Then, what hurt them the most, what truly made them hate what they had become, was the sight of their eyes. Once a deep and rich brown, had morphed into a poisonously bright green. Reflecting what they truly had become, inside, and out. They knew they still had their own mind. Their own thoughts. Their own aspects of who they were; the Cybug couldn't get rid of that. But oh how they wished, wished that they could have had their eyes back. They would keep everything about their body the same, if they could just have their eyes. So that when they looked in the reflecting mirrors, they could still see what humanity they had left. They could see how human they had once been. But now all they saw was bright, pulsing green that glowed hotly in the dark. No pupil to be seen. Nothing remotely _human_ about them.

Though it was not remembered by their comrades, not anymore, it could still remember all the history they had been given. Good times they had been all meant to recall with warm chuckles and smiles. Now they were nothing but wishful thinking of times long since passed. It never did them any good to dwell upon them longer than necessary, if they wished to keep their sanity where it was.

In the darkness of the labs, alone, forgotten, and unwanted, the once proud figure now lay amongst its nest of abandoned lab coats, red and stained, torn and cut, and other soft items it had managed to salvage from the destruction. Its eyes would stay cast towards a small sliver in the roof of their _cell_, letting in a very dim light from the levels above them. It would draw a smile, if one could call it that, before its frown returned as more memories would strike through their heart. Or, whatever it was they had now.

A low rumbling sigh broke the otherwise barren silence their home, their cell, their prison, cast upon them. Eyes that shone brightly, glistened as tears, true tears began peppering the claws beneath its head. It was…a human thing to do. Slowly, they turned away, burying their head amongst the rags and wires, drifting into an uneasy sleep. A rare pleasure that helped to ease their gloomy seclusion; sending them to another world, another game where they were remembered, where they had been given a chance. Once upon a time, it had nearly been given that chance, until the cards dealt to them were stuffed away, back into the box to never be seen or heard from. To never be acknowledged, to never be known. Once upon a time, it had been known as the Admiral.

Once upon a time, she had been called a hero.

* * *

_**This is a short drabble I wrote about a character I created for Hero's Duty, whom I call, the Admiral. Once, she had been the leader of the fleet that would shepherd soldiers and scientists to and from the unnamed planet used for experimentation with the cybugs. When things went sour, she had tried to evacuate as many as she could, but her ships were taken down by the cybugs shortly after taking off. It had been written in the coding that she was still planet side, her personal shuttle having remained behind to try and fetch the last of the scientists. Down in the lower labs, she had followed not only her own platoon down, but also Calhoun's team as well, to try and get the last souls out. A group of cybugs corned them, and knowing that none of them would reach the exit of the labs with the bugs so hot on their tail, the Admiral ordered them on and let herself become a distraction. Using not only her gun, but also a flash grenade to stop the cybugs in their tracks and focus on her. It was there that she was consumed by a cybug and mutated into her cybrid form. Admiral was meant to have been a boss fight for the players, to be guarding the medal and act as a bitter moment in the game. A message was meant to have been played in an abandoned and non-infested area, to be a last message to any soldier who heard it, telling them that if they were to reach the top of the tower and destroy the cybugs in their wake, then the battle would be won. This message was hastily recorded, shortly before the Admiral's 'death' amidst her gunfire, having used the in her ear. The players would then identify the Admiral as the giver of the message when Calhoun was to state in shock that the Admiral was still alive. The idea was then scraped shortly before release. Instead of removing the Admiral from the game, they simply 'sealed' the lower labs, effectively making them unreachable by the players. The others in the game, such as Calhoun, could go down to her should they please, but they had no reason to believe they needed to. Any memory of what was to become of her, and what role she was meant to play, was deleted. The Admiral remembers what she was meant to do, but no one else does. **_

_**Also, I own the Admiral and her fate and such. I dont own Wreck-It Ralph, cybugs, Calhoun, you know what I mean.**_


End file.
